Oil spill in Soo Locks a warning to shut down Line 5 ticking time bomb in Great Lakes

LANSING — The Michigan League of Conservation Voters today renewed calls to shut down Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac after news of an oil spill in the St. Mary River near the Soo Locks.

Shipping traffic was halted due to a 5,300-gallon spill originating from Algoma Steel on the St. Mary’s River between Lake Superior and Lake Huron, first reported by MLive. 

“The damaged Line 5 oil pipeline is a ticking time bomb in our Great Lakes and this latest oil spill near the Soo Locks serves as a reminder that the threat to our water is very real and the risk to our health is at-stake,” said Lisa Wozniak, executive director of Michigan League of Conservation Voters. “We must not forget the devastating fallout of Enbridge’s oil spill in Kalamazoo. Our drinking water, our economy and our health remain at risk each day Enbridge continues to pump oil through Line 5.”

The news comes the same week expert findings revealed significant flaws in Enbridge’s reasoning for keeping Line 5 open, including impacts to gas prices. The findings were part of a lawsuit filed by the Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians.

The expert findings contained in the filings show that energy price increases in Michigan and Wisconsin likely would be less than one cent per gallon. In addition, they show that Enbridge consistently makes misleading, overstated, and exaggerated claims about alternatives to Line 5 — the experts show that rail and truck can combine to be viable alternatives and that there is more than enough capacity in our propane supplies and production without imported fuel from Enbridge.